The Little Angel

It's 1884, and 14-year-old Sunday Small has been in the Nuneaton workhouse since she was abandoned at birth. The regime is cruel, and if it were not for her dear little friend Daisy, Sunday's life would barely be worth living. And now she's attracted the unwelcome attention of the seedy workhouse master, who will stop at nothing to get her alone. It's time for Sunday to strike out alone in the world, but the brutal world of the workhouse will not let her go without a fight....

Ginny's drunken father, devastated by the death of her mother and three siblings, ends up imprisoned for murder. Charlie, Ginny's eight-year-old sickly brother, is taken to the workhouse. Ginny is forced to flee her job and the unwanted advances of a baker. Close to breaking point, her beauty leads her to become Lady's Maid to the difficult Miss Diana at Lamp Hill Hall. However, all Ginny wants is to find her brother.

Eliza was left as a small baby at the workhouse in Whitechapel, wrapped in her mother’s shawl, which is all she has of the mother she never knew. At 11 years old, she has survived sickness, near starvation and harsh beatings. Master Simpkins and his cruel daughter rule the workhouse with a rod of iron, but when Romany boy Joe arrives at the workhouse, his spirit and courage give Eliza hope. When she is sold into service, Eliza is relieved to be out of the workhouse and hopes her fortunes are changing for the better, but cruelty and unkindness are everywhere....

Dilly is devastated: with her husband unable to work and four children already at home, they cannot afford to feed their newborn baby. Heartbroken, she delivers her baby girl to the Farthing family, who have just lost their own daughter to measles. This act of desperation will change the lives of both families irrevocably. But when the chance for true love finally comes, will Dilly choose family over her own happiness?

On the outskirts of Nuneaton stands Hatters Hall, home to the mentally insane. One rainy, dismal day in 1857, Maria Mundy arrives there to work. She is ordered to care for Isabelle Montgomery, daughter of an influential land-owner, but it becomes apparent that she has been falsely imprisoned. It’s going to take courage, determination, and resolve - but freedom is always worth fighting for.

A warmhearted and nostalgic festive family saga. Will Tilly finally find a family to call her own? As Christmas grows nearer, Tilly, a young maid, is sent away from her home in London to care for a sick child in an old cottage on the Isle of Sheppey, and she little imagines how her life will change.... Having settled in with her new family, Tilly dares to believe that the happiness she's longed for could be hers at last and that she might finally be free from the secrets of her past. 

For 10 years Delia has had to fend for herself and her son, Jack, and as a young unmarried mother, life has never been easy. Every new coat and pair of shoes was bought with what little money she could scrape together as a singer on the stage. But when the theatre work dries up, Delia faces a dilemma: continue the search for employment with no knowing whether she'll find the stability and security her son needs or return to the place that should be home...where only spite and hatred await them.

A family pulled apart. A love silenced.... For as long as Briony Valentine can remember she has been soft on Eddie, the boy next door. But their chance of romance is stifled when the Luftwaffe begin dropping bombs on the midlands. Eddie is called up to serve, as is Briony's father, tearing her world apart. As the telegrams arrive, all she can do is pray.

Lizzie is an orphan living with her aunt Annie, uncle Perce and two boy cousins within a stone's throw of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Lizzie loves her aunt but is hated by her uncle. She makes friends with Geoff Gardiner, another orphan, and is teaching him to swim in the Scaldy when Clem Gilligan rescues the pair of them from drowning. Clem works on the canal boat, The Liverpool Rose, with Jake Pridmore and his wife, plying between the great cities of Leeds and Liverpool. Lizzie's situation at home starts to worsen and eventually she is forced to flee. Her first instinct is to make for the canal, but finding Clem is not so easy....

London, 1854: 20-year-old Essie Chapman lives with her father in poverty-stricken Limehouse, working on the river as a boatman. Her life seems set before her, never to leave this part of London and forever at her father's beck and call. Then, one night, she must transport a mysterious man from a foreign ship to the banks of the Thames, a man who ends up renting a room in Essie's house, identifying himself only as 'Raven'.

Warwickshire, 1840s: boys are destined for the pit and girls for the mill. Despite this, Maryann is happy there - until her mother dies. Her family collapses, leaving Maryann exhausted, and Toby, the boy she is set on marrying, insists they wait. Then Maryann is offered a position as nanny to the daughter of the mill owner, Wesley Marshall, who Maryann grows unexpectedly close to. But their relationship doesn’t go unnoticed, threatening to unleash a world of problems on them all....

Standing on London’s Victoria docks with the wind biting through her shawl, Rose Munday realises she’s been abandoned by her sweetheart. She had risked everything to get to London, but, stumbling through the pea-soup fog, she has nowhere to go and no one to turn to. Scared and alone, Rose steps straight into danger, only to be rescued by two women with even less to their names - a woman of the night and her young sidekick, Sparrow. With only a cluster of love letters to her name and all hope of her sweetheart’s return fading, Rose finds herself forging a new life with her unlikely companions.

Living on the edge of the beautiful Norfolk Broads with her father, the only ripple in Tess Delamere's calm life is the disturbing dream about her dead mother which haunts her. She yearns to know more, but the arrival of a new stepmother heralds the end of Tess' hopes that her father might divulge the past. As she grows up, Tess slowly starts to put together the pieces herself. But the outbreak of war brings tragedy and upheaval, changing Tess' priorities....

Alone at Christmas, will she find somewhere to call home? No more than 18 years old, alone and heavily pregnant, Kathleen stumbles through the snow, desperate for somewhere to rest her weary head. As the Christmas bells chime around her, she glimpses a man through the haze before collapsing into his arms.

Bonnie Lindsay is born into a travelling fair community in the northeast in 1918, and when her mother dies just months later Bonnie's beloved father becomes everything to her. Then, at the tender age of 10 years old, disaster strikes. Heartbroken, Bonnie's left at the mercy of her embittered grandmother and her lecherous step-grandfather. Five years later the events of one terrible night cause Bonnie to flee to London, where she starts to earn her living as a singer. She changes her name and cuts all links with the past.